Slave Rebellions in Ancient Rome and in the Americas: The Role of the SupernaturalIngrid de Haas

Roman frieze depicting slaves wearing neck collars, Wikimedia Commons

Slave rebellions have been a constant in almost all slave-holding societies across both time and space. While these were broadly based rebellions that included many individuals, many of these slave rebellions rested on charismatic leaders.These leaders were also believed to possess supernatural powers. These ranged from the ability to predict the future with the help of otherworldly forces to creating powerful amulets and substances with magical properties.A comparison of three slave rebellions that took place in ancient Rome with others that occurred in the more recent past in the US and the Caribbean sheds lights on this aspect of slave rebellions.First slave rebellion in RomeIn the middle of the second century BC, a major rebellion took place in Sicily and dragged on for five years. It began when a Syrian slave named Eunus managed to convince hundreds of other abused and half-starved slaves that the goddess Atargatis had ordered him to lead them out of slavery.To his fellow slaves’ amazement, Eunus performed several “miracles.” One of these entailed producing fire from his mouth, which he apparently did by hiding a hollow nut filled with sulfur and pierced at both ends. His followers, of course, saw only the resulting flames, not the means he used to produce them.

Many Roman slaves such as this one. died in the eruption of Mt. Etna, 79 C.E., Wikimedia Commons

This fire trick was viewed as physical evidence of Eunus’ oracular abilities. He claimed that he could foretell the future because the gods visited him in his dreams, and as validation of this, flames shot forth from his mouth as he uttered this prophecy. Predicting that his movement would be successful, he soon had 60,000 followers.Under Eunus, rebel slaves set out to murder their masters and their families and to destroy Roman villages and towns. These rebels were soon joined by another large group of slaves led by Cleon. Eventually their numbers reached about 200,000.The Romans sent one army after another against the rebels, who consistently defeated the well-trained legions. Eunus felt confident enough to announce that the gods wanted him to be king.But the Romans finally beat the rebels, and many were tortured and crucified. “King” Eunus died in prison, allegedly consumed by lice. It is doubtful that he was able to foretell – with and without the flames – such an end to his life.Second slave rebellion in RomeThirty years after Eunus’ rebellion, a second slave rebellion took place in Sicily. The chosen leader and later “king” of this rebellion was Salvius, who was said to be skilled in divination, just as Eunus had been. Although this second rebellion started out with only 80 rebels, Salvius gathered 20,000 followers in no time at all.Soon after this, in another part of Sicily, a slave named Athenion, who claimed he had great skill in astrology, began a rebellion. Reading the stars, Athenion made a few accurate predictions about the future---his success gained him countless followers. And his decision to join forces with Salvius created a large-scale rebellion that the Romans could not ignore.

Free or slave, many Romans wore magical amulets like this bulla, Wikimedia Commons

Again and again, the Romans sent out one army after another to crush the rebellion and it took them four years to get rid of the rebels. Those who did not die on the battlefield were punished with crucifixion or sent to Rome to be torn apart by wild beasts in the arena. One thousand prisoners preferred to kill one another rather than die at the hands of the Roman state; the last of these prisoners then killed himself after killing his comrades.Third slave rebellion in RomeIn 73 BC the Romans once again faced armies of slave rebels. This time Spartacus, a slave who escaped from a gladiator school, along with 78 other gladiator-slaves, led the rebellion.Spartacus had once been free, and had fought alongside the Romans as an auxiliary, but he was later enslaved and sold to the owner of a gladiator school.It was rumored that around the time that Spartacus was first sold, a snake was seen coiled around his face as he slept. This made him seem half-divine, as was the case with the hero Hercules, about whom similar stories were told concerning snakes.Spartacus’ wife happened to be a prophetess, and she likely spread the story of the snake, making it easier for the rebels to choose her husband as one of their leaders.Spartacus’ wife, a well as the families of fellow rebels – women and children – participated in this movement, which took the Romans two years to put down. Spartacus and many slaves died fighting, and 6,000 survivors were later crucified along the Appian Way.In all three rebellions, the leaders gained crucial support by claiming that they knew how to predict the future with supernatural help from the gods. Although their skills did not produce the results they sought, Spartacus, Eunus, and Athenion were able to convince and lead thousands of slaves for several years based in part on their claims of supernatural abilities.

The harsh reality of slave life is completely missing from this painting, c. 1790-1800, Wikimedia Commons

Slave rebellions in the New WorldCenturies later and thousands of miles away, slaves who were believed to have magic powers also played important roles in various rebellions.Every plantation and some cities in the Americas had a conjurer or obeah man (or woman). Obeah is the practice of harnessing supernatural forces and spirits to either harm or help the living. Obeah possessed the power of life and death: on the one hand the obeah man or woman could cure diseases (or even resuscitate the dead), but on the other hand, he or she could poison and kill.Because of these powers, such conjurers were greatly admired while simultaneously feared. It is no surprise that these powerful individuals could easily lead others in a number of uprisings.Rebellions in the USThe first serious rebellion in what is today the United States took place in New York in 1712. Twenty-eight slaves united and killed 10 people and injured 12 others. They were led by Peter the Doctor, who used incantations and gave his fellow rebels a magical powder that, once rubbed on their clothes, would make them invulnerable.A rebellion in 1822, in Charleston, South Carolina, involved three conjurers. One of them, Gullah Jack Pritchard was reputedly so powerful that he could not be killed. Pritchard made the rebels follow a magical ritual and he then gave them charms (crab claws) that were supposed to make them invulnerable. Philip, another one of the conjurers, had the ability to foresee the future and (accurately) predicted the failure of the revolt, but this dismal prediction did not stop the rebels from following Gullah Jack and Denmark Vesey.Rebellions in the CaribbeanSomething similar to the 1712 New York case happened in Jamaica in 1760. A slave named Tacky led a revolt, with the help of obeah men who gave his fellow slaves a magic powder that was supposed to imbue them with special powers and increase the likelihood of success.In Saint Domingue in 1791, obeah (known there as Vodun) was used in yet another rebellion. A Vodun houngan (priest), Boukman Dutty, was one of the masterminds of the movement, which included, among other things, the total destruction of the plantations and factories in Cap Français and the murder of all whites.

Matthew Brady captured the pathos of slavery, Public Domain

Before the thousands of slave rebels set out, Boukman uttered some Vodun incantations and drank sacrificial blood drawn from a pig. Bookman was quickly captured, but Toussaint Louverture and the other leaders carried on with the movement.This slave rebellion was much more successful than a previous one led by another Vodun priest, François Macandal, 40 years earlier. For although the rebels were defeated by the French colonists, the movement set in motion a number of other violent events that ultimately culminated in the independence of Saint Domingue, later renamed Haiti. So was it magic?Other well-known conjurers in the Americas used various amulets that allegedly gave protection to slaves. These often involved the use of a certain root or powder and a certain ritual. Whenever an amulet “failed,” its users did not blame the conjurer but rather themselves, and typically went back to the same conjurer for a new form of protection. The same can be said about the failure of the resistance movements. The slaves apparently never blamed the obeah men when their movements were unsuccessful.We don’t know what kind of amulets the leaders of slave rebellions in Rome used. But based on what we know about magic in the ancient world, and the fact that everyone wore one kind of amulet or another, it is not unlikely that the rebels used amulets or resorted to another form of magic.But whether these amulets gave protection or not, the fact that those who wore them believed that they did was often enough to encourage people to join a rebellion---and the more people joined these rebellions, the greater the rebellion’s chance of success, even if only briefly.

Ingrid De Haas received her Ph.D. in ancient Roman history from the University of California. She has published two works of historical fiction: Roman Arms: Huntress a novel about Camilla, a character from Virgil's Aeneid and Take my Order for an Amulet about slave resistance and magic in the ancient world.